To me this is a really shallow look at things, though. I mean yes, if we were able to magically hand-waive away all guns we'd probably have fewer mass shootings. But it doesn't automatically follow that we'd have fewer mass murders. (The prime example is that the deadliest U.S. mass murder in a school was committed with dynamite.)
So what is different about us because the statistics don't say we're different in any way except the number of guns? This also isn't a discussion about mass terrorist murder, it's one about mass shootings. You hand waived away the entire topic. We don't lead the world in dynamite bombings. There's no amendment protecting the right to own dynamite and ammonia nitrate. Mass bombings aren't happening around the globe either. We lead the world in guns and mass shootings and, despite the alarming gap, the graph seems to track linearly according to ownership. You're trying to redirect the conversation in an unproductive way that ignores the issue at hand and it's a very common tactic with people who don't want to admit that the gun laws in the US are entirely too permissive.
None of what you're saying actually describes what I said. I criticized the idea that guns are the sole explanation for mass shootings in the U.S. as shallow (and, I'll add, lazy). From this, you filled in the blanks with the typical anti-gun-laws archetype and ran with it. Gun laws are certainly too permissive. But they're treated as, ironically, a silver bullet, and are used as a way not to have to tackle the broader societal issues. A society that exclusively wants to legislate rather than improve itself is doomed.
Well you didn't answer my question. The article does by comparing the rates of other explanations for mass shootings in this country and we're only exceptional in gun ownership. It's no leap in reasoning to say that when we're equal in every way to the rest of the civilized world the answer is obviously that the number of guns leads to the number of mass shootings we have. So, how many mass murders do we have that guns aren't involved with? And do you really think that that number will increase significantly if we control, not eliminate, guns? That hasn't happened in any other country. Is every unstable fuck with easy access to guns going to teach themselves how to make bombs? Or is it just part of life and there's no point in controlling gun ownership because people are going to kill people anyway? Because it makes a lot of sense to make it harder to kill people no matter if they're going to do it anyway. People still rob banks but we don't leave the vaults unlocked because robbery is going to happen anyway. Guns shoot and they aren't responsible for shootings? The article addresses other possible contributing factors and dismisses them because of data from other countries that is similar to our own. I really might have no idea what your point is, in large part because you brought up an unrelated topic in a discussion about mass shootings. Yours is a lazy argument that I hear repeatedly. And it's lazy because it doesn't address the issue, it side steps it entirely and tries to change the focus of the discussion which tends to just confuse the conversation because people get distracted by dealing with this worthless talking point.
You know this how? The rest of your point is basically "we don't know whether anything else causes it, so we're just going to hand-waive that and pretend that it's irrelevant." That's the type of thinking that makes for sound public policy. Especially when you consider that despite mass shootings and gun ownership being basically the same, our murder rate has dropped precipitously over the last 20-30 years. You refuse to consider any other factors, yet somehow my argument is lazy? Give me a break. For example, let's look at some other countries: Brazil: 8 guns/100 residents (compared to the U.S.' 101). Their rate of violent gun deaths is more than 6 times that in the U.S. (19.34/100,000 compared to our 3.85). Trinidad and Tobago: 1.6 guns/100 residents. Violent gun deaths: 13.03. So 1/100th of the gun ownership rate, but more than 4 times the deaths. El Salvador: 5.8 guns/100 residents. Violent gun deaths: 40.29. 1/20th the gun ownership rate, more than 10 times the deaths. Sources for ownership numbers, violent gun deaths.and we're only exceptional in gun ownership
So you concede that things other than gun ownership rates affect the rates of gun-related deaths in a country?second and third world countries